The Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation was established by the Latin Recording Academy to promote international awareness and appreciation of the significant contributions of Latin music

The Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation announced today the winners of its Research and Preservation Grant Program. This program provides grants to music institutions, nonprofit organizations, musicologists, and researchers around the world who are enhancing and preserving Latin music heritage. This year, an eclectic group of institutions and scholars will receive this support. The grants, with a maximum value of $5,000 USD each, support diverse initiatives: the Preservation Grants fund the archiving and preservation of Latin music and its unique customs, while the Research Grants support projects that emphasize historical and anthropological research, in addition to documenting traditions and Latin folklore.

“This year’s winners have presented interesting and inspiring projects on not only Latin music, but also on the traditions, fusions, myths, and folklore that comprise the culture,” said Manolo Díaz, Sr. Vice President of the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation. “These projects will preserve, restore, and investigate the abundant practices and rituals of the craft, while making their findings accessible to the entire world.”

Preservation Grants are being awarded to:

Henry Durante Machado from Brazil. Machado’s project, “Projeto Acervo das Tradições” focuses on preserving and cataloging the cultural traditions of Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Amerindians, Caipiras and the Caiçaras of the southeast and northeast regions of Brazil through photographs and videos that will be archived on a free digital platform, www.acervodastradicoes.com.br.

Ysrael González from Mexico. González endeavors to preserve the cultural music and histories of Tierra Caliente of Michoacán, Mexico, through the creation of the “Sound Archive of Tierra Caliente: Leandro Corona Bedolla,” a free webpage that will house and preserve genres, oral histories, and ancient repertoires of that community and will provide complimentary access to the traditions and music of the previous generations.

Research Grants are being awarded to:

Marco Antonio Juan de Dios Cuartas from Spain. Juan de Dios Cuartas’ project, “Popular Music in the Context of the Recording Studio: Spaces and Agents of the Record Production Process in Spain (1960-1990)”, will investigate the musical contributions of Spanish producers. It will study the ways in which producers, engineers, composers, and session musicians influence the creative process within a recording studio.

Agustín Arosteguy from Argentina. Arosteguy’s project, “The Imaginary Geographies in the Songs of Yupanqui,” aims to investigate and examine the symbolic elements and concepts that compose the images of a particular location within the music of Atahualpa Yupanqui. The general objective is to understand how the lyrics of the songs composed and performed by Yupanqui acted in configuring imaginary geographies and how they operate (and continue to operate) in the ways territories are conceived and interpreted.

The winners were selected among numerous qualified candidates by a committee of experts from Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, and the United States.

The Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation was established by the Latin Recording Academy to promote international awareness and appreciation of the significant contributions of Latin music and its makers to the world’s culture, and to protect its rich musical legacy and heritage. The Foundation’s primary charitable focus is to provide scholarships to students interested in Latin music with financial needs, as well as grants to scholars and organizations worldwide for research and preservation of diverse Latin music genres.